Comparing Car Rental Companies For the Best Deal

When visiting cities and other spots with excellent public transportation (or that are easily walkable), we seldom hire a car. But I've found that in many destinations, having a vehicle is a nice option. You can see more of a city's surrounding areas, enjoy the freedom of going where you want to when you want to and you don't have to worry about booking tickets in advance for tours and public transportation. What often holds us back from renting a car in our travels is the cost. In some places it can be prohibitively expensive to hire all but the smallest compact vehicle. I like options when I'm doing a road trip and prefer to have a larger car. This often means that we're spending hours checking out all the different car companies and looking for the best deal.

So it was awesome to discover Carrentals.co.uk, which searches up to 50 different suppliers (including all the majors) in over 15,000 locations around the world. I loved using this website. The interface is attractive and easy to use, allowing tons of flexibility for choosing all the options you want using filters. The vehicles are categorised using ACRISS Car classification codes so you can easily figure out what size car you need for your journey. Once you choose and book, you receive a voucher via email. From there all further transactions regarding options and extras can be done directly with the car hire company.

We used the service for our recent trip to New Jersey. I always feel like I need a car in the United States, unless I'm in the largest cities. We had family to visit on this trip and also wanted to take a day trip to Philadelphia from Atlantic City. We needed a car, and for eight days over the Christmas holiday period. I was delighted to find that the price for this was only £255.22 (around US$405) for the cute little Nissan Versa pictured below (a compact car). While I selected '121' as the car hire company, our hire ended up going through Budget, who provided excellent service and a nearly new vehicle for our journey.

Being in "my country," the US, I was the designated driver for our trip. John hates driving when he's on holiday and, after driving us practically everywhere for the entire time we lived in Australia, that's only fair. After my trial by fire getting out of Newark airport, and a hair-raising first hour down the NJ Turnpike (what a bunch of speed demons over there!), I actually started enjoying the drive and realized how much I actually miss having a car. We decided against buying one in Norway because it is so prohibitively expensive to have a car there. I love the freedom and flexibility to explore a destination, to enjoy listening to music while we drive and stopping off along the way if we choose. Now that we've found such an excellent value solution to finding the best deals on car rental, I think we'll be renting a car more often.

Carrentals.co.uk sponsored our car hire for this journey, but all opinions are always our own.

We rent a lot of cars – sometimes for long periods of time while we’re home too. It’s always good to check to see if your company has corporate rates – Joe’s has a code that can be used worldwide and it always saves us money.

Oh! I am so glad for this suggestion. I had a horrible car renting experience in Italy, where we didn’t even end up with a car. Awful! Since then, I relied on public transportation, which isn’t always bad. But sometimes, it’s good to have a car, depending on the destination. I’ll definitely tag this site for my future rentals.